set core.longpaths=true in all the windows containers used for builds

[jtnord]

Service(s)

ci.jenkins.io

Summary

git on windows will barf if a file has a path length > 260 characters. Why this is the default do not ask me but still.

This causes some problems for plugins where files can not be checkedout (may be during some IT tests where the java.io.tmpdir is used whcih results in some longer paths than normal).
or it could be there is just a long path/filename in the git repo.

As such the containers should set on windows core.longpaths to true in the containers.

ref: https://github.com/git-for-windows/build-extra/blob/main/ReleaseNotes.md#:~:text=Many%20Windows%20programs,core.longPaths%3Dtrue%20....

(additionally if the user running the container supports it symlinks core.symlinks shoulld be set)

Reproduction steps

No response

[dduportal]

Related pipeline that triggered the issue: https://github.com/jenkinsci/pipeline-model-definition-plugin/blob/master/Jenkinsfile (there might be others)

ToDo list for the person of the infra team that would take this issue (can be me, can be someone else of the team):

• Set core.longpaths in the pipeline library used by this pipeline - github.com/jenkins-infra/pipeline-library => should solve the issue in short term
• Check if Jenkins git tool is configurable with the options core.longpaths. If yes then set it up in https://github.com/jenkins-infra/jenkins-infra (profile buildmaster, there is a JCasc template for tools)
• Check if the agents (Azure VM, Azure Containers, EC2 VMs, Kubernetes Containers) can be set up through environment variables for this git option. If yes then set it up in https://github.com/jenkins-infra/jenkins-infra (profile buildmaster, there is a JCasc template for tools)
• Set core.longpaths on the Windows VM templates in https://github.com/jenkins-infra/packer-images (easy)
• Set core.longpaths on the Windows VM containers (hard) in https://github.com/jenkinsci/jnlp-agents/tree/master/maven (as per https://github.com/jenkins-infra/jenkins-infra/blob/production/hieradata/common.yaml#L233-L234).
  • Alternative to consider seriously: start building custom Jenkins Infra Windows containers in https://github.com/jenkins-infra/docker-inbound-agents/ and use it, so we can add whatever settings we want with no impact on the Jenkins users

[timja]

Set core.longpaths on the Windows VM containers (hard)

i would just set it tbh

[dduportal]

Set core.longpaths on the Windows VM containers (hard)

i would just set it tbh

Same here. I've mentioned that it's "hard" because it requires a contribution out of the scope of pure jenkins-infra. It's easy technically though, and coul be fast if it is merged quickly on the jenkinsci/docker-agents repo

[MarkEWaite]

jenkinsci/git-plugin#856 attempted to add git plugin configuration for the core.longpaths setting . It was closed because there is an open issue on git for windows that prevents the setting from having the desired result in all cases.

I don't object to setting the global configuration value core.longpaths = true, but the comments in git-for-windows/git#2576 indicate that there will be places where that is not enough.

[dduportal]

It looks like that it is resolved through the pipeline library: is that correct @jtnord?

If correct, we can close.

For information: #2873 was opened to allow the jenkisn infra team to build their own image: that would ease such issues in the future.

[lemeurherve]

Confirmed on a private channel, we can close this issue. Thanks for the new one!